


Rumpelstiltskin and Oniroku

by Tallulah



Category: Death Note
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Fractured Fairy Tale, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-09
Updated: 2015-02-09
Packaged: 2018-03-11 09:25:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3322295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tallulah/pseuds/Tallulah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mello and Kiyomi both learnt, long ago, stories about the importance of not letting others know your name.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rumpelstiltskin and Oniroku

You can't say Wammy's House didn't give you a well-rounded education. Maths and English and stories after dinner, for fuck's sake. Mello doesn't let his mind wander onto his childhood that much, but driving a lorry, even one with a kidnapped newsreader in the back, isn't exactly Formula One, so he figures it's cool - 

(plus thinking about Wammy's is thinking about Matt, and, he wouldn't be doing that if, so it proves he doesn't, or that Matt didn't, or that, fuck it, it proves nothing _matters_ )

He came to Wammy's when he was, what, four? And could still speak Russian or whatever it had been (sometimes in his dreams it surfaces and then odd words'll stick in his head all day like apple skin in your teeth). They read the little kids fairy tales, mostly the helpers but once or twice Mr Wammy himself, when he was back there. (And once or twice Mello thought he recognised them, the stories, that is, but they'd changed bits and the words sounded different. Or maybe he dreamed that.)

(Mello had tried to forget he wasn't English. Everyone else was, or managed to make like they were, so he had too. Matt hadn't even had to try -)

What was it, what was it? That one. Some dopey girl, right, and her dad's told the king or the lord or whatever that she can spin straw into gold. Headlights rush past him. This thing's too fucking slow. He'd rather be on the bike. The air smells damp.

The dad says the girl can spin straw into gold (I mean, what did he think would happen?) and so the king locks her up in a room with a shitload of straw and is all _so, get on with it._ (You're supposed to be a genius; prove it.) She bursts into tears (the listening orphans had shouted out how they would've tried to trick the king or argue their way free or whatever.) Still, she's kind of entitled to cry, 'cause the king's told her if she doesn't pull it off he'll roast her on a spit like a pig. (Was that in the version he was told, or did someone else write that in? The rule may be fake, but the spirit's the same. She's fucked, basically.)

Anyway, this demon appears and offers to spin the straw into gold for a price. Can't remember what the price is. It was over three nights, right? Always the rule of three in these stories (and the third always wins, and Matt's already gone -) Anyway, the last night she hasn't got anything, so he says he'll take her firstborn child in return. (Spirit him off to an orphanage, maybe. Ha. No.)

They've reached the church. The lorry grinds to a halt; Mello slumps back on the seat. His wrists ache; he's probably been gripping the wheel too hard. Now what? That bitch'll try and fight back, and if she doesn't Kira will, and that's the _point_ , but it wasn't s'posed to be Matt, Matt was just the distraction -

How's that damn story end?

It all comes right, and she gets married and has a kid, but then the demon shows up again and is all _you owe me_. Only he relents and says he'll let her off if she can guess his name. (She already had his face, so that's covered. The shinigami eyes would've made this dumb story a lot shorter.)

And so she goes looking. Or does she send someone else? Whatever. Mello'd have gone looking, if it were him. You don't hang around waiting for others to do your dirty work, they'll only fuck up. 

(Matt's an exception, then?)

(God fucking _damn_ it.)

She goes looking and finds the demon dancing in the fire and singing his name to himself.

(M, I, H, A)

(His scar's itching again. It isn't really itching. It's just when he's edgy he seeks distractions. Always has. That's why the Wammy's staff hated his guts. Matt understood.)

It's dark and clammy and the dark's creeping round the lorry and trying the doors. The demon's singing his name in the fire and so she creeps away and writes it down. 

(Mihael, K, E)

And then when they're face to face and he thinks he's got it made, she smiles sweetly into his eyes and says: _Your name; is it Rumpelstiltskin?_

And then what happens, and then what happens? Dancing in the fire. And he realises he's fucked and so he stamps his foot so hard it sticks in the floor, right, and then he grabs his left foot and rips himself in two. (Mello always remembered the gory parts. Kira had nothing on folk tales when it came to plotting a grisly death.)

(Mihael Keeh, L)

He's only remembering this because of the names gimmick. She found him dancing in the fire and saying his name (well, Soichiro Yagami said it, but what's that matter to eavesdroppers?) And she waited until they were face to face - 

His heartbeat plunges like a footstep through a mouldy board, but before he has to rip himself in two from the pain, it all stops anyway.

***

Takada leans back against the truck's metal side. She's so cold. Her hands are so numb she can hardly feel the pencil stub in her fingers. She unfolds the piece of paper, looks at _Mihael Keehl_ scrawled across it. Nothing like her normal neat handwriting. But it is cold.

Stands up, squints through the broken window, watches the slumped figure. She's never seen any of them die before. He groaned as if he were having a nightmare. You only write down the name. It is almost frightening, seeing he is dead. They really are like - like gods. They have magic.

(She's so cold. She wishes Raito would come soon.)

You only write down the names. 

(She is Kiyomi Takada, she is Kira's spokesperson, she is the most important woman in the world and she shouldn't be here, naked and shivering and locked up waiting for someone else to come and save her. Somehow, it's gone wrong. It's gone wrong and it's gone wrong because _she_ wasn't smart enough, they'll say, she has let Kira down -)

Don't think about that. Think about the names. Think about having that _power_. No one knowing your name is almost as important as everyone knowing it, these days. Like that story Daddy used to tell her. (Fairy tales. An appropriate father-daughter bonding activity. They'd both recognised that they were meant to enjoy it, at any rate.)

Just don't panic. Think about something else.

She swallows, begins to speak, lets her voice bounce off the metal walls. 

"A carpenter is trying to build a bridge over a fast-flowing river."

(Raito will come soon and he will hold her and take her home and she can have a hot bath and some tea.)

"He despairs of ever being able to manage it -"

She thinks there may have been some backstory. The man is in love with a girl from a nearby village and if he can't build the bridge she can't marry him. Something like that. She always thought love was a stupid motivation. She still does. She is helping Kira, building her own bridges, because she admires his ideals. She will never admit to anyone how hard she cried when Raito abandoned her at university.

"He despairs, but then a demon rises from the waters and says that it can build the bridge, in return for the carpenter's eyes. The man agrees -" Did he know what he was agreeing to? She can't remember. _Give me your name and I'll give you my eyes._ No. But yes. Mikami has given away his eyes and he no longer needs names. The cold is making her think crooked. For goodness _sake_. "But when the bridge is built, he wants to keep his eyes, and the demon tells him he can only do so if he can guess his name. The carpenter realises he can't, and so runs away, because he wants to keep his eyes." Stupid. Wasn't there more to it than that? She can't remember. It's not important. "He runs into the dark, cold mountains..." No doubt distraught at the impending loss of his love and his vision. But he knows she still loves him. Takada swallows, tastes smoky, bloody air. Why did she think that? "He sees a fire up ahead..."

She's so cold. That bit wasn't in it. Or maybe it was. Maybe it was one of the parts Daddy added in. He often did that, to try and make it more interesting. She's so cold and she wants to be warm. 

"Dancing around the fire are two little demons, and they are singing about how the demon Oniroku has tricked the foolish carpenter into giving up his eyes." 

Fire. If she leans forward enough, she can just make out the burn scar on Mello's face. She giggles, suddenly, stupidly, as she rarely does; Mello thought he had her eyes but she had his name. Or, Mello thought he had Kira's eyes but Kira had his name. Aren't she and Raito as one anyway?

Why isn't Raito here?

The cold is like icy black water filling up the back of the truck.

(She never gave up her eyes for Raito. And of course, she is famous and so everyone has her name.) 

She can see that the sun is shining, but she can't feel it, she can't feel anything except this cold, and she only wants to be warm, she only wants to be warm...

"The carpenter goes back to the bridge, and waits, and the next day Oniroku appears to him again, and makes the same demand." Glass from where she smashed the window and sunlight on her back. "But the carpenter laughs, and he says, _Your name, it's Oniroku!_ " 

Glass and paper and cold and fire. 

If she can only be warm, everything else will go away. She catches the sunlight and brings it inside. She has no fire to dance around (yet) but she did something almost as stupid anyway. Didn't she? Didn't she? 

"And Oniroku howls with rage, and disappears. In a puff of smoke."

The reality hurts a lot more.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the LiveJournal community '12daysChristmas'.
> 
> If I've got the Oniroku story wrong or missed out key details, I'd love to know!


End file.
